If you're having problems reading the above quote, it states: "The realization of dreams, like every battle for freedom, has always required compromise to one degree or another. When the result of a concession, however, is the mutilation of your soul or the cancellation of someone else's future, then it may be said the desired goal was corrupted or destroyed rather than attained."

Taken from the book Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah, it's a good one summary of one of the title's major theme and the intro excerpt below tells you more. But you can also download the full introduction for free right here.

The section below tells you a bit more about some of the nonfiction narratives in the book:

The stories in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah do not focus directly on the unusual racial dynamics which have influenced the city’s growth and development, or lack thereof, since the days of Oglethorpe and slavery. Unfolding on levels ranging from the private and familial to the public and institutional, they offer examinations of what happens when dreams, visions, and nightmares converge, or clash, within the context of a given life impacted by cultural geographies merging within regions of a creative mind. Oglethorpe would have known something about that.

In “Cities of Lights and Shadows and Prayers,” a writer moves back and forth between awareness of himself in 1990s Savannah and a false memory of interactions with cultural icons in 1940s Paris. “A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Savannah” examines the paradox of an estranged caregiver rediscovering the meanings of family and fate through a surprise holiday visit from Brazilian immigrants. “Trees Down Everywhere” documents attempts to prevent the flooding of a civil rights icon’s historic Victorian home during the ravages of 2016 Hurricane Matthew and at a controversial moment in Donald Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency. The title story, “Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah,” confronts the legacy of slavery while the closing narratives examine modern conditions and hopes for the future.

“The Bridge and the Monument: A Tale of Two Legacies” was first published in The American Poet Who Went Home Again. The updated text included in this volume is presented in tribute to Dr. Abigail Jordan, whose passing (January 9, 2019) was reported just as edits were undergoing completion. It is also included because of the role it has come to play in ongoing present-day efforts to change the current name of the bridge spanning the Savannah River from the city’s downtown area to Hutchinson Island.

Aberjhani
author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah